Summoning Unicorns at the Grange Fair!

I have a dear girlfriend who has been a very close friend for years and years, and one of our annual traditions is to meet at the Grange Fair for what we call our "Grange Gorge." This is an episode in central Pennsylvania eating that may involve French fries, onion rings, peach dumplings with cinnamon ice cream, tacos, monkey bread, and any other kind of delight we can find!

Our approximately 20-year tradition was interrupted by Covid; there was no fair for either of us in 2020 or 2021. But what about 2022? Well, the sad news of the weekend was delivered via a reluctant Facebook message: my friend has a very busy life right now, she has responsibilities to her two wonderful girls, and this year, she cannot make it to the fair.

Early this week, my husband suggested I might still enjoy a trip to the fair, solo. Wednesday's weather looked to be peachy-keen. What if he dropped me off at the gates and left me there for a few hours, to run amok with my brand new camera? Would I enjoy such a marvelous photo op as a couple of hours at the very last encampment fair in the nation? WOULD I??????? Who wouldn't? It was any photographer's dream!

So it was that late Wednesday morning found me packing up my daysack and my Tiger, and hopping into the car, ready to go to the Grange Fair. My husband dropped me off a a bit before 11:30 and would be back to get me around 3 p.m. That would leave me more than three and a half hours, unfettered, at the fair!

Since the gate he dropped me off at was near the animals, the first thing I did was to visit the pigs, cows, sheep, and goats. I never tire of seeing goats in cute little outfits. I snapped a few photos of one of a photographer's favorite subjects: children and barnyard animals. In the extras, you may see a teen girl snuggled up with her cow. (She wasn't the only one I discovered cow-snuggling!)

I bought tiny plastic baggies, and Tupperware, and candy, and ultra-cheap tubes of Super Glue. I looked for things I've bought at the fair before - bungee cords, wool socks, and work gloves - but did not see any! The Avon lady who used to sell Care Deeply lip balm for cheap has been long gone for quite a few years. I did not see any estate jewelry for sale. These are some of the things I missed.

I approached some of the main buildings at the fair, and stopped when I heard music. A lady was singing and she had a guitar and a harmonica. The songs were folk songs, things we all knew. And when she sang, If I Had a Hammer, I stood back, swayed along with the crowd, opened my mouth, and sang from my heart:

"It's the hammer of justice!
It's the bell of freedom!
It's the song about love between my brothers and my sisters,
Aaaaaaaall over this land!"

I walked through exhibit and commercial buildings. I admired canned goods, and quilts, and vegetables, and baked goods. I looked at antiques, and yard ornaments (did I need a metal chicken for my yard?), and signs: Are you a good witch? Or a bad witch? And Johnny Cash walked the line.

There were places selling t-shirts and shorts, lots of Penn State apparel. And shirts with slogans on, as always. "I wasn't born a sheep and I won't die one." I imagined buying one of those shirts, and putting it on my pet sheep, and walking all around the fair with my sheep in that shirt, and just laughing, laughing, laughing our sweet patooties off over it! "But you ARE a sheep," I'd say to my pet sheep, and he'd say back: "BAAAAA!!!" (And then some!)

And then, as I was walking along through the rows and rows of army green tents, and admiring all of the long white benches with memorial notices on them ("Your love story began here" made me misty), I heard the tiniest sound of music on the air.

I looked over to see this little blonde girl with a wee pink flute. She was playing her flute with passion and intensity, and I imagined she was summoning unicorns! Look, do you see one hiding behind that tree? I think so! There's magic happening here at the fair!

I walked through the games area and had so much fun with pictures that it was absurd. Someone OCD is in charge of lining up all those round blue glass jars that you throw balls at/into to win a goldfish. I got my camera in on those blue jars and zoomed in and played around. It was like my water abstracts: zooming in and making an abstract out of a real image. You may see one of them in the extras. It is called Etude in Blue, Take 2. I imagined it had almost a bit of an Escher vibe. Where do they begin? Where do they end?

I bought monkey bread with icing and a peach dumpling, all for later, and tucked them into containers in my daysack. This was the first time I did not actually eat or drink anything AT the fair. (We'd had a big breakfast just before leaving the house, and planned to stop for Mexican on the way home when we gassed up the car.)

But later that night, I would enjoy a delicacy of unimaginable merit: a peach dumpling from the fair, topped with Penn State Berkey Creamery's August Pie ice cream, about which you've ready MUCH on these pages. It reminded me of that time I saw Bruce Springsteen at the BJC AND enjoyed a bowl of lobster bisque at the Nittany Lion Inn. Some experiences in life simply cannot be topped. A peach dumpling heated in the microwave and topped with slightly melted August Pie is one of them.

One of the very last things that I did was I took my $4 and bought tickets to ride the Ferris wheel. T. Tiger and I climbed in, and took a ride to the top, where we could see the entire fair laid out at our feet. Tents, animals, vendors, food, rides. The blue sky above us with puffy little clouds. In the distance, a little girl continued playing her flute. And all of the unicorns came out at dusk, to dance with her at the Grange Fair.

Now, it is my tradition to provide a soundtrack for my images, and there are a few you have probably already been singing as you read this story. First, for my little girl who plays the magic flute, I want this one: the Irish Rovers, with The Unicorn. I must also include the song that I sang with glee, as the lady played her guitar and her harmonica: Peter, Paul, and Mary, with If I Had a Hammer. And for my OCD Escher Blues shot, let's have a little Lou Gramm, with Midnight Blue.

P.S. Here is a shout-out to my dear friend Gail, whom I did not get to spend this time with at the Grange Fair this year. I missed you and your girls and your mom! I will hope to meet you NEXT YEAR at the Fair!


Bonus links to past Grange Fair photos and stories:
8/28/12 - Meet Me at the Fair
8/27/13 - In Which We Make New Friends at the Fair
8/26/14 - The "Monkey Man" and the Monkey's Kiss
8/25/15 - Here There Be Cows
8/24/16 - The Grange Fair: Sunset on the Midway
8/23/17 - Lord Have Mercy! Peach Dumpling at the Fair!
8/22/18 - Grange Fair: Taco Stand in the Night
8/21/19 - Celebrating 145 Years of the Grange Fair